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Posts Tagged ‘Asian black bear’

Leopard, bear, elephant and other rare creatures caught by a home brew ‘point and shoot’ camera trap

A black-phase leopard.

As I was in the forest checking my DSLRs last month, this little area where I park my truck looked like it might be promising and most likely used by some cryptic wildlife. I decided to setup my old Sony P41/BF board/Pelican 1040 with two ‘C’ cell externals (built for me by Dave, the old owner of BFOutdoors.com).

A yellow-phase male leopard.

An Asian black bear.

The cam is encased in an ‘elephant proof’ box attached to a tree and locked down with a Python cable. I’ve had this cam since 2008 and it’s still working very well. I usually carry a few of my old ‘point-n-shoots’ in the truck in case I need to survey a new trail or location like this.

A female muntjac (barking deer).

A green peafowl.

A couple weeks later, I was back and found a whole slew of animals had come by. A black leopard was the first through followed by a yellow-phase leopard, a muntjac (barking deer) and then a black bear. Other creatures that also came were green peafowl, elephant, large Indian civet, porcupine, several smaller civets and finally the tail end shot of a leopard again in daytime.

An Asian elephant – some strange flare.

Even though some of these photos are not the best, they are a good indication of what passes through. I previously got a tiger 50 meters from here. I have already decided to set-up a DSLR across from this tree and worked out where the flash and sensor positions would go…it looks very promising….I just gotta get back there…to be continued…!

Last month, an elephant destroyed one of my slave flashes on the D700 causing a shut down of the system due to a short in the flash cable. I left the cam for awhile longer with only two slaves but nothing crossed over the ‘tiger log’. I then decided to bring the setup to Bangkok to repair the third flash. I left a Bushnell Trophy Cam in place to see what wildlife would come to the ‘tiger log’.

Well as luck will have it, an Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) came up to the log but did not cross. Some thirty minutes later, a yellow phase leopard (Panthera pardus) jumped up on the log and posed. The next day, a tiger (Panthera tigris) passed by very quickly proving once again that this location continues to produce images of Thailand’s top predators on a regular basis.

My D700 is now back on the log and was working well when I left it two days ago. It is hoped that the ‘big cats’ will continue to cross over the log and trip the sensor…

This is ‘Part One’ titled ‘Chasing a Wild Dream – Predators’ of the presentation I did for the Biology Club at the University of Tennessee on Veteran’s Day, November 11, 2013. There is some old footage but some new including a black leopard in the early morning walking by my cam..one of my favorite videos…..enjoy..!